Lake Bell Quotes

I feel respect is in your hands as an actor when portraying a character, particularly when it's from the Indian subcontinent. I do make a conscious effort to do so and often talk to the directors especially about the heavy accent when it's not needed.

You've got to be honest with yourself aesthetically about who could you play. You want to artistically be true to that character.

You want to try and bring a character to life in an honest a way as you possibly can. It doesn't matter whether he's a doctor, an actor, a car salesman or a captain of a starship. If you can bring truth and honesty to that character, then your audience will believe you.

'Learn your lines.' I want that on my gravestone.

Every time a director calls me and says, 'If you practice a lot in two months, can you be an American?' And I always tell them, 'Well, maybe but I'm French. So it's going to be hard to be someone else.'

I have always like doing accents; I find it much easier to get into character for me.

I think being a character actor is exciting in that it allows you to embody completely different things, whether it's through wild accents or a crazy bad guy or a drunken good guy.

You draw on whatever's relevant to the part you're playing; it makes it more personal.

When you see a singer on stage who is 100% committed to the personality, character and temperament of the role being sung, it's truly awesome and very powerful.

The closer a part is to you, the harder it is to play. Anything else is just imitation. If I'm playing a Russian countess, I get the hat, the accent, the outrageousness. Easy. Playing a murderess? Perfect.

My act is an exaggeration of a part of me. I'm much more expressive off stage.

I wouldn't say I'm a Method actor, but there are times where a role will require you to live in their world.

I've played American characters before, so I've naturally become more at ease. Still, there are some American words that I cannot get my tongue around, but if you keep it flowing, you are never too far away from the truth.

I am always physically and emotionally invested in the characters I play.

If I don't stay true to my character, I would fail as an actor.

There is a very thin line dividing characterisation from impersonation. I've to make sure I don't cross over into mimicry.

As an actor, your main goal is to tell the truth.

I don't do all of this as an indulgence. I do it because I'm not a good enough actor to not do it.

Nothing comes easy when I'm in character, because everything I do in character, I take seriously.

I don't want to be an English actor doing the greatest American accent you've ever heard. I want to be an American doing nothing.

When people embrace character, it informs their living, breathing moments in a scene so well.

I also listened to hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of [J.F.] Kennedy, and I sort of built [ accent]. And then I got on set [of 'J.F.Kennedy' movie ] and forgot it.But that's what you want to do. You want it to just be real. And I think authenticity was better than - people always talk about when an accent doesn't work, and the phrase you always hear is, "It was inconsistent."

It's not most important to communicate myself on stage as it is to be as funny or interesting as I possibly can on stage. I feel more like I'm doing a play whose main character just happens to share my name.

A great deal of my battle, as an actor, is to widdle away the things that make me self-conscious and try to trick myself into not being self-conscious.

My family has to be very patient living with me, if you're playing a part that's not you. You have to get it right.